Rhianna’s Shoes

When we got married the men all wore canvas shoes.

All of them were all different colours and it took a long time to decide on the colours.

I had some gorgeous shoes for the wedding and then moved into my white canvas shoes for the reception.

And we decided that Rhianna would have a pair of pink canvas shoes too, as her brothers had canvas shoes as well.

We used her shoes at the wedding, they sat in the fireplace and were with photos of Mr L’s friend and were there for the whole day.

We got married in 2014 and after the wedding the shoes came home and they have lived on the stairs to our bedroom since.

It is a strange thing.

She was never able to wear shoes.

The ones we brought for the wedding we went on our nieces shoe size to get a size that would be appropriate for Rhianna’s age at the time and that is the size we brought.

But her shoes have become such an important thing for us.

They were never hers but only hers.

She was never able to wear shoes but these are the perfect shoes for her.

And they can never just be thrown away.

It is something that is so insignificant to anyone else, but to us it is so important.

And it is something that is commented on a lot by the boys friends.

Who’s are the shoes?

Why are they there?

There faces are a bit of a picture when they get told they are the boys sisters and they were from our wedding as their friends know she was stillborn and know she wasn’t at the wedding.

You can see them trying to work it out.

But they still stay.

No one mentions them at home.

But we all know they are there.

We all know why they are there.

And not one of us would dream of moving them or getting rid of them.

And actually I love that.

It was the hardest decision trying to make Rhianna as big a part of our wedding as her brothers were.

And actually one of the simplest things has become still one of the simplest things at home but equally one of the biggest things in our house.

I would never move the shoes from the stairs to our room.

If we didn’t have an extra set of stairs to our room then the shoes would be by our bedroom door.

It is just the way it is always going to be.

It’s small, it’s significant, it’s right for us and it will always remain this way.